The Brain Speech ~ Written

(December 27)

         You are made of three essentials. Breath, body, and brain.

         Of these, how might you rank them? More importantly, why would you rank them as such? Which do you place first, and which last?

         What is this? Connor tweaked an eyebrow at the beginning lines, so pristine in their black ink and straight creases. It was the second of two letters unearthed from the care package he’d finally gotten from home. Dad’s was already read, catching Connor up on things at home. He was fond of his Montana hometown, always helping out with the holiday parades and community festivities. It’d been tough, not being there this year.

         So, with Dad’s letter absorbed, there was only Mother’s left.

         In the world of today, you stack a lot of your efforts into what your body can do, or what you want it to look like. You rely on your body to take you farther, if not higher, in life, with people taking one look at it. This has become a norm mentality because it’s where society places its emphasis.

         Connor let the folded pages fall on his chest, giving him full view of the wavering tent roof above his bunk. This’ what she sends me!? Not a ‘miss you’, or ‘love you’, or a ‘be careful’… just another collection of academic clauses!

         Gah! He sounded like her! Connor had prayed for a lot of things as he’d been coming into adulthood, but Mother’s pattern of speech was not one of them.

His mother- the author of his love fest- was out of Alabama. This usually had people assuming that she was as sweet as iced tea. Wrong! Mother was an intense, rapid speaker, conveying her topics with the same straightforwardness as an airway strip. She was an English and composition professor, who had built a nationwide reputation in public speaking. Connor had had to listen to her speeches all of his life… and now, three thousand miles away, he listened to it still. Ephesians 6:1 commanded that he do it out of respect if nothing else and Connor lifted Mother’s letter up to read it.

You may press yourself in any way you like, but every body has its limit. Not ‘everybody’, but ‘every’ body’.

Connor breathed out through his thick neck, deep from inside his firm pecs and narrow torso. He’d been born lanky and had really stepped up- and enjoyed- his regimen at the gym to shape up for the Army. Was Mother saying it was all for nothing? The use of ‘you’ and ‘your’ was making this one of her more personalized speeches… and this was how she was choosing to use it.

The brain is different; more expansive, perceptive, and adaptable. It is your source of motor skills, cognitive processing, and memory retention, the intelligence that protects your breath and body. You are the only one who can set any kind of limit on this intelligence. You use your brain like a sponge, soaking up the many things that surround you. It happens whether you are aware or not, but works better in awareness. And in any way that you can, from anywhere you’ve been or find yourself.

Those words were familiar. Connor had on heard them the first day of school, every year from kindergarten on. Connor had, he’d admit, benefitted from that zealous, take-no-prisoners curiosity. He had discovered his likes and dislikes, learned qualities that pushed him to join the Armed Forces.

I took her advise. Conner moved on to the next page. Not that she ever noticed.

My message to you is to use your brain, recognizing it for the tool that it is. I have said that you are made up of three essentials; breath, body, and brain. I haven’t said that you know how to use them.

Oh, do you now. Connor thought haughtily on his A’s and B’s through high school and college.

Choosing to use your essentials is part of your responsibility. A responsibility you take up when you use your brain. In the many layers of this word ‘use’, you protect your brain, nurturing it rather then neglecting it. Give it rest, give it practice, keep your brain sharp. In short, take care of your brain as you would your body. You attend this responsibility daily, hourly if necessary. Your brain has the capacity for great things. This capacity is what God has willed to you, Connor.

Connor’s jaw softened a little at that. Mother’s work was in the secular college, the same with most of her speeches. She kept the family’s Biblical morals in her topics, whatever they were, but she often kept any direct mention of God out of it. Unless she’d written this for a speech at a Christian university. Or… had she written it just for him?

It would be unwise to think of your brain’s capacity as an easy jar to fill. A brain, like a body, can do things all of your life, and still learn nothing. You can’t boast about your brain in the number of miles traveled, the shelves of books read, or the expensive meals shared with famous people.

“Who are we talking about here, Mother?” Connor wondered aloud. Two bunks over, a fellow officer looked up from his pillow. “Hey, I’m sleeping!”

“Sorry.” Connor shrugged, his attention already back on the letter.

God filled this world with facts that show you truth; the good and the bad. Freezing temperatures will turn rain into snow. Seeds need both water and sunlight to become plants. A human body contains five liters of blood at any given time, through arteries designed to pump thirty liters a minute.

Your brain takes in these facts and comes to its own opinions about the world. But, if you don’t bother drinking it in like air, none of the facts will teach you anything. You must let them do this because they’re God’s instruments. If you want these truths to make sense, you must soak up all the knowledge and wisdom that comes your way. Don’t ignore what God’s using to teach you, to make you better. He’s a teacher that never stops. Therefore, you don’t stop being a student.

She tells me this AFTER college. Connor sighed to himself.

He had wanted to join the Army right outside of high school, but neither Dad or Mother thought it wise to skip a college degree. Four years and a Bachelor’s in Industrial Engineering later, Connor at last found himself on a base. A base that, if he mentioned it in a letter home, it would have to be censored.

There was an apprehension in the walk and talk of everyone here, an outer layer to the die hard loyalty that they all exercised with every hair-raising mission. And Connor craved it, constantly. Dad had been somewhat understanding of that. Mother hadn’t even tried, exclaiming her disapproval from day one.

Yet, she didn’t try to stop me. Connor gave her that much.

You should never choose to stop learning or to not take something into your brain. Nothing grows or matures overnight, but the magic is that your brain doesn’t run out of room. Once again, where your body can reach a limit, your brain won’t. You can push, push, and push, always keeping that limit in front of you.

Connor remembered the pushing he’d gone through at basic training.

Your brain’s a coffer, meant to be filled over and over. There’s always going to be room for more. Your body develops when you look after it. The same pattern should be followed with your brain. I mentioned that you must practice with your brain. But, like anything, you soon discover that you can’t endure practice without patience.

“Again, basic training.” Connor muttered. And finals… uuughhh, finals!

We rarely show patience with others and are even harder on ourselves. This stems from another demand that society makes of you. It demands a pace, brisk to neck breaking at times, claiming you can learn the most in the least amount of time. Yet, it is those moments of slow stillness where your brain absorbs at an alarming rate.

Yet nobody could keep up with you. Connor spoke out against his mother without really meaning to. He was finding it a little frustrating though. His mother- and you called her ‘mother’ because you showed her respect- was a straight-shot speaker. She was someone who had transformed lives with her hard-hitting paragraphs and immaculate punctuation. But after awhile, that was all Connor could hear of his mother. And it got old. Real quick.

The extensive space of your brain allows it to function in this amazing way. The better you look after your brain, the better the function. Yet, regardless of how much or how little of this world you welcome into your brain, recognize that such knowledge is yours to keep. This is the single reason that your brain is so important, Connor.

His name.

She’d typed his name twice now in her speech. Connor felt thrown for a moment and for the first time, his eyes slowed over the words.

Facts, opinions, details, and missing pieces enter your brain everyday. You filter through them, retaining what you must and clinging to what you want. No one can tell you to leave certain knowledge behind or stop you from taking certain knowledge in. Your brain is delicate and dangerous, much like your body. However, where your body can be held back or scrutinized, your brain doesn’t have to be. Once something’s inside your brain, no one can get to it. It’s hidden away, unmeasured by others.

On this point, you shouldn’t misunderstand. Your brain can be susceptible, like an athlete when faced with sugar. Your brain does hold a breaking point… but the level of that breaking point is up to you. Your knowledge and wisdom and opinions become a wealth inside your brain. No person has access to your wealth except you. Open the door to it, if you want, but others are powerless to break this door down.

What’s inside, is yours.

Was it so quiet because there was no wind today? Or was it just the mental space Connor found himself in? This wasn’t a regular speech from his mother that he was reading. The transitions were weak, the flow sporadic, and… there was, well, emotion. Mother had emotions, but not when it came to her speeches.

What was her state of mind when she was writing this? Connor turned to the final page quizzingly. The thought that she might have actually broken the protocol of grammar for him… Connor’s chest was warmed.

Your breath and body are what sustain your brain. God commands them to do so because without your brain, neither your body or breath could exist. You should reconsider your brain’s place on the totem pole and how you treat it. The possibilities of this world are open to you because of the capacity of your brain. This shouldn’t be ignored any longer. It should be acknowledged. And embraced.

That was how it ended. Conner got the feeling that whatever Mother had wanted to say, she hadn’t been able to say all of it.

Maybe this’ all she knows how to say. Connor thought, allowing the papers to fold up on his chest again.

The smell of sweat and dust came back to him, his full presence returning to the conflict he had thrust himself into. He never thought about it too hard, deciding that fear or some other unstable emotion would not cripple him. Maybe that’s how Mother has to act towards everything.

Either way, he would have to thank her when he saw her and Dad, hopefully come June. Who knows… we might even end up talking.

~To Be Continued~